Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Choosing poverty?

A few weekends ago, my roommate and I went to a party in her friend’s room. The boys on that floor are known to be a little conservative, but they’re friendly. We were laughing, singing silly drinking songs, and having a good time until one of the guys shouted, ‘Fine, I’ll get my own beer. I don’t take handouts like a lazy welfare mom.’

None of them knew that I had been on food stamps when I was younger. None of them knew that growing up in Chicopee, my best friends had all been on welfare with mothers who, like mine, were anything but lazy, working ten hour plus shifts to support families. All of them firmly believed that people choose to be on welfare, to be homeless to be hungry, to suck hard-working folks like themselves dry.

People don’t choose to be on welfare, to live in unsafe housing, to visit soup kitchens or go hungry. The myth of the always-pregnant, drug using Puerto Rican welfare queen and the crazy, can-collecting homeless old man couldn’t be farther from reality. This weekend I went with a group of MassPIRG volunteers to a soup kitchen. To my surprise, the bulk of the business wasn’t crazy old men, but young children and families. I work in Holyoke with young mothers receiving welfare and working for their Graduate Equivalency Degree (GED). These women are some of the most eager-to-learn, enthusiastic and talented young people I’ve ever met. They appreciate and write poetry, learn about and work on environmental and social issues, and are mothers besides. None of them choose poverty – they’re kept there.

People don’t live comfortably on welfare – the total of all the benefits is below the poverty line, but the alternative is worse. The kind of jobs that are available – minimum wage, part time, seasonal, and temporary work – doesn’t provide benefits like childcare of healthcare. When my mom worked as a manager at Burger King, my sister and I used to stay at the restaurant after school because we couldn’t afford a babysitter. For parents without manager privileges, what alternatives do they have? My mom had mono, which put her out of work for three months. If we’d had better health insurance, we could have prevented it. When families are living from paycheck to paycheck and don’t have health insurance, sickness can easily mean unemployment and homelessness. Families receiving welfare also receive state health insurance, but lose that health insurance once they obtain a job. In short, they have to choose between the health of their family and employment.

Right now, because I’m in college, I’m covered under my parents insurance. But two years from now, if I don’t get a benefits-paying job right away, I’ll be without insurance. If I get sick, I’ll end up with unmanageable hospital bills and, if I get sick enough, I’ll be out of work and out of a home. Health care should be a right, not a privilege, and we can only solve poverty by providing universal health care.

Massachusetts frequently leads the nation in progressive social change and we’re leading the way with healthcare. Right now there is a bill in the state legislature that would increase the number of people who have access to state healthcare, An Act Expanding Access to Healthcare, Reducing Youth Smoking and Improving Public Health in the Commonwealth, S 1703, and a bill that would lower the price of prescription drugs, H.2886, through the group buying power of our state so that money does not rule over health. There is also a bill that would establish universal single payer healthcare in Massachusetts, S.531. I have had the opportunity to work with students on universal healthcare through MassPIRG, and I urge everyone to call or write Senator Stan Rosenberg and Representative Ellen Story or your own state congress person and tell them why universal health care is so important.

Laura Kyser is a UMass student.
Bendee: Laura Kyser

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